Hydro-Québec crews are out working to get the lights back on for tens of thousands of clients across Quebec after violent winds and heavy rain pummeled much of the province overnight.
More than 180,000 customers are without power as of early Thursday morning due to the intense wind gusts.
Most of the outages are in the Montérégie and Montreal regions, followed by the Eastern Townships, Lanaudière and the Laurentians.
The public utility said a total of 470 teams — around 940 workers — will be working to restore electricity as quickly as possible.
Six schools under the Lester B. Pearson School Board, including four elementary schools, are closed Thursday due to the ongoing power outages.
The New Frontiers School Board in Châteauguay, southwest of Montreal, says two of its schools are also closed.
Environment Canada meteorologist Georgina Barradas said a cold and warm front collided, causing sharp changes in temperature.
In Montreal, the temperature dropped from 13 C to -12 C in just a few hours overnight.
“When you lose almost 20 degrees in three hours, that’s very impressive, so it was never about a lot of rain, it was never about precipitation, it was mostly about two different air masses,” said Barradas
She said heavy winds with gusts of nearly 100 kilometres an hour hit the Montreal area.
A power outage resulted in a major breakdown of Montreal’s light-rail network, the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) Wednesday evening.
Four trains, one of which was empty, were stalled in both directions around 7 p.m., affecting some 100 passengers. Trains are running as usual again Thursday.
Environment and Climate Change Canada had issued warnings of strong winds and sudden temperature drops for almost all regions of Quebec, including violent westerly winds blowing up to 90 kilometres per hour.
Temperatures are expected to stay well below freezing Thursday.
